


reflections, dancing

by ninemoons42



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Always Female Prompto Argentum, Dancing, Established Relationship, F/F, Inspired by Music, Pre-Canon, Rule 63, always female Noctis Lucis Caelum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 21:06:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17108120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Prompto wonders about -- fighting for her life. Fighting for Noctis's.She wonders about dueling, and about dancing.





	reflections, dancing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Akumeoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/gifts).



> Yes, I did write more Rule 63 Promptis. :)
> 
> (Written as a holiday fic present; posted 12/23 UTC+8.)

The sky is an endless beautiful vault of blue soaring high over her head, and stretching out farther than she can ever hope to see, and -- it’s an empty kind of blue, though, she thinks. Cool, like a drink she might want to pour into a glass over ice -- cool but empty, not really memorable after the crunch of cold between her teeth or the refreshing flavor on her tongue.

Which is -- nothing but water and a few more precious cubes of Nyx’s favorite fruit -- that golden-yellow thing, strange leathery wrinkled on the outside and touched in several places with blushing red, with dark brown spots -- but left to ripen until it’s heavy and dripping, peeled and cut away from the large fibrous seed, the flesh is springy-sweet, even if it does have a tendency to dissolve into a thick custardy syrupy kind of thing -- and she pops the lid back on her thermos, shakes the whole thing vigorously to dislodge the thin layer of almost-dissolved fruit and distribute it again -- the second sip is sweeter, and she holds the mouthful of water in her mouth for a moment, savoring the fruit before she swallows and it goes down, and she would rather think about golden fruit and the sun beating pleasantly down on her shoulders, up here, up where she feels a little bit safe.

Down, like ten floors down, is the cloud of dust that can only mean the track team on their slow laps, and it’s not the first time she’s been extended an invitation to a tryout, and -- it’s not the first time she’s raised the question with Nyx, or with Libertus; although it is the first time she’s finally worked up the courage to ask Ignis. Three people who would know better, or at least that was the idea behind her asking in the first place, and she’d gotten three different answers from them: no and yes and maybe. 

It’s almost enough to make her laugh, nervously, in the here and now.

Although both Nyx and Ignis had both suggested she take up some kind of weapons training instead: and that had been scary, she had thought -- still thinks -- she can’t like the idea of taking up arms and yet it’s the one thing she knows will get her farther than any kind of determination, than the ability to run far or fast, because in the end her goal is to get into the Crownsguard, and the goal of the Crownsguard is to keep the person on the throne of Lucis alive.

That person, and their heirs.

Or in this case: the sole heir, the daughter of Regis -- the Crown Princess, who after all had not been in class today.

Prompto sighs over the last mouthful of water in her thermos and carefully doesn’t think about waking up that morning to sad-face emoticons in the private chat channel she has with Noctis. The message: “I can’t even get to school today. Citadel shit to be doing. It’s gonna be one of those dead boring days. And I don’t even have an excuse to come see you, because you don’t have to get my homework, because Ignis already emailed the teachers.”

She’d responded with: “I thought we were supposed to -- do stuff after school today.”

“I really really want to go and do stuff with you, but -- not today, sorry.”

So Prompto’d gone about her morning routine, instead, maybe a full forty-five minutes too early because there hadn’t been anything else to do or think about -- and she’s been listless all morning, been almost bored all morning, and there’s still a full thirty minutes to go before the end of this particular break period -- 

“Hey, this seat taken?”

And at the first sound of that voice -- that familiar lilt, that insolent almost-song, that startling thrilling accent -- she’s so, so, so glad she’s sitting well inside the railing that runs around the rooftop.

Heart skipping and thundering in her ears as she clutches at her thermos and then turns her head, up and to the side, and she recognizes the sweet smile of Noctis Lucis Caelum, actually here, actually present, actually sitting down next to her: and she says, “One day you’re going to send me flying off this roof for real, and not even because you said something nice or, or awesome, or funny.”

“It’ll be because I said something amazing and it blew you away,” is the snap of an easy answer, the wide easy smile of her that maybe only Prompto ever gets to see. “And when that happens I’ll warp to you, I’ll catch you. I made you that promise at least, and I intend to keep it.”

“Like that’s easy,” she says, and she wraps her arm around Noctis’s shoulders, waits for Noctis to wrap her arm around her waist.

“I know it isn’t, but let me dream.”

“What are you doing here,” Prompto asks, after a while. “Did they let you escape or something?”

Silence for a moment, and then: the movement of Noctis. Her head drooping onto Prompto’s shoulder. Prompto immediately makes more room for her in the lee of her body, and wraps her other arm around her as well, so Noctis is completely supported against her, completely slumped into her side.

“Nah. I’m on timeout. I can’t get the thing done, I can’t concentrate, I said I’d be back in a couple of hours to try again. It isn’t over yet by a long shot.”

“I wish you didn’t have to do any of these things that just -- stress you out,” Prompto mutters, trying to be soothing.

“Can you find a way for me to stop being Crown Princess? Because I can take that, I think,” she hears Noctis mutter. “No, scratch that, I wouldn’t just take it if it happened to me. I’d enjoy it. I would like it very much. And while you’re at it, maybe you can find a way to make sure my dad is okay.”

“If I could answer those questions for you, Noct.”

“Prom. I know you want to help. I also know no one can help us.” Noctis’s hand, that’s Noctis’s hand, seizing one of Prompto’s and holding on hard. “It’s gonna be okay, I’ll be okay, I’ll manage. Eventually.”

“Eventually, and until then -- ” She doesn’t mean to trail off; she’s not expecting to run out of words either, so she just holds Noctis even more tightly. Just scatters kisses into Noctis’s hair, gently, swiftly.

“Thanks,” she hears Noctis say.

And: “Oh, of course, I’m an idiot. I actually came here to ask you something. Probably should get a clue about the homework first, though, is there a lot that needs to be done or turned in or some shit?”

She has to think about it: homework is the last and farthest thing from her mind at the moment. Not when she’s trying to commit every detail of this brief and fleeting Noctis to memory: the undress black-and-gray of her Crownsguard tunic, that she wears more like a mini-dress, over lace-trimmed short shorts and her usual knee-high boots. The heaviness of that material that scratches at Prompto’s skin, a little, and that probably accounts for the fact that Noctis is wearing a thin and light hoodie inside the tunic, faint heather-gray streaks and crimson embroidery along the edges.

“Prom?”

She blinks. Tries to remember the question. “I think I can manage most of it tomorrow if I don’t, like, get distracted by needing to clean the house or something. And you’re smarter than I am so it’s not going to take you that long either. Why?”

“Honestly, I don’t see what’s so exciting about cleaning things, I mean I see why it’s necessary to do the thing but I don’t know how it could get you so excited.”

“It’s not the cleaning that I like to do, it’s the procrastination,” Prompto almost laughs, almost scolds, and it does get a smaller, answering laugh out of Noctis, but only after she’s done pulling a spectacular series of mock-disgusted faces. “What do you want from me?”

“Come to the Citadel,” Noctis says. “Not tonight. Tomorrow night if you can, and you can stay over for the rest of the weekend, and we’ll go back to school together. Is Nyx okay with you doing that kind of thing though?”

“I don’t think he’d have a choice right now,” Prompto mutters, only a little sadly. Only a little worried. “He went off on patrols, what, three days ago, and I can’t expect him back before the end of the month. Something like that.”

Noctis goes stiff in her arms, at first, and then pulls away -- and Prompto mourns the loss of contact for only a moment.

What she gets in return is the real concern in Noctis’s eyes, in Noctis’s face. “Prom. I’m so sorry; I wasn’t thinking. Hadn’t thought that had already been laid on.”

“I’m not expecting you to know everything the Glaives do,” she says, gently. “Not something you should be concerned with -- yet. And besides. You couldn’t have known about this one in advance, except if you could actually tell the future. Nyx went, but not his unit -- it’s Axis’s group that’s doing the extended patrol -- he went to help because he said he heard the name of the place where they were going and he knew exactly how dangerous that place was, and they needed some experienced backup. I yelled at him a little, you know, over the phone and having an actual conversation and shit. Yelled at him because -- he’s playing hero again.”

She can’t help but sigh, and worry anew. “I think we just trade off worrying about each other, you know, Nyx and me? I worry about him, he worries about me, the reasons why we worry are unimportant.”

“If there was something I could do to make that entire situation better -- ”

“Then you’d have done that something already, Noct, and if not you, the others. Even your dad might have tried to do something about it by now. Since there’s nothing that can be done -- yes, I’ll come stay with you. Tomorrow night, you said?”

She waits for Noctis to regain her composure -- for Noctis to try on a crooked smile, and sit up straight again, and nod. “Yeah.”

She thinks about the remaining stash of fruit in the house, and the fact that there’s only her to eat them and they won’t last until Nyx gets back: so she says, “I’ll bring you something sweet to eat.”

“I might need it,” is Noctis’s reply, as she gets to her feet, wincing all the while. “Oh. And bring your workout gear, will you? I might need your help with something and you might as well be dressed for the occasion. But, but I mean, only if you want to.”

“Okay if I say, we’ll see?”

“’course.”

Glint of blue, on a short black blade that Noctis is starting to pass from hand to hand, short throws turning into longer arcs. 

Prompto asks, “What do you think of me going in for weapons training?”

The blade pauses only briefly, in its short rapid-fire flights. “You’re really serious about the Crownsguard thing, aren’t you.”

“Because you need protecting,” she says, blunt and kind, as she hauls herself up to a standing position, as well. “And -- I need to help. I want to protect you. I want to do something about that and if it means that I have to learn how to carry a weapon around when just the thought makes me feel like I’m going to break out in a rash or something -- then that’s what I’m going to do. I want to learn how to protect you.”

Sparkle-flash of the little knife vanishing, and -- Prompto finds herself with an armful of Noctis once again. “And I keep telling you, you don’t have to protect me, you absolutely don’t need to, but -- if you’re serious, then, then thank you.”

She hugs Noctis back. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you going out alone in the world. I know you’ve got Gladio and Ignis. You could always use one more person to guard your back, and if that can be me, then -- I want it to be me.”

“I want it to be you, too. But -- we might be able to talk about it later. Over the weekend. I have to go.”

It’s hard, it always is, to let go of Noctis -- but Prompto’s more than used to the emptiness of her own hands, the emptiness of her own arms, the cold stitch that knifes up her ribs and threatens to skewer her own heart. 

Maybe Noctis feels that cold, too, because Prompto watches her pull her hood up completely, covering her beautiful face almost all the way down to her mouth, before she hurls her little knife off the roof and -- vanishes after it, in a chiming high song of shattering warp and crystal-faceted afterimages.

///

She can still smell scorched sugar and browned butter on her own knuckles, on her own fingertips, by the time she fetches up onto the stone steps leading up to the Citadel: and maybe she feels a little gritty around the edges, a little sleepless, but what’s a little cramming between friends?

Okay, maybe not really between friends because why would she tell Noctis that she’d hurried through the homework overnight, literally for the purpose of having nothing else to worry about once she made it out the door? And then she’d made a batch of little fruit pies, too, baked golden-brown and crisp around the crimped edges and, she hopes, still warm and good to eat even when she’s transported them halfway across the city, and up these steps to the great open doors.

The person waiting for her inside those doors regards her with almost knowing eyes. “What did you do this time?”

“Oh, buncha math things, buncha readings, I made pies, I cleaned the house,” she says, flapping one hand at her own eye level. “Haven’t slept much. Not sure you wanted me to tell you anything else.”

“Forget I asked,” but Gladio snorts out a laugh and grabs her duffel bag right off her shoulder. “Let’s get you upstairs, before Noctis decides she’d rather run out on us again.”

“Right, do I get to ask about that? She was kind of telling me she needed some help. Didn’t say what she needed help with, and I was under the impression it was -- important, but not like saving the world important, so I’d really love a few clues here. I don’t know anything, I would like to know something, contrary to what everyone else thinks I’m not real fond of going into things entirely unprepared.”

“You wouldn’t want to get into this one knowing nothing, no,” Gladio says, after a moment, after the doors of the elevator have closed on the two of them and they’re speeding upwards, enough that Prompto can feel the pinch of gravity pulling downwards, pulling her back down to the ground, like extra weights hanging from the soles of her feet. “Except that what she’s doing isn’t something I’m familiar with, myself, so even if I wanted to help you, even if I wanted to give you an idea -- I actually can’t.”

The idea makes her blink, a little. “She’s doing something and you don’t know what it is?”

“The thing she’s doing, it’s not from her dad’s side of the family. It’s from her mom’s. Galahdian stuff.”

He’s not looking in her direction, but she raises an eyebrow in his direction anyway. “And you know I’m only technically Galahdian, or the only reason I count is because my guardian’s from Galahd.”

That’s not entirely true, but he doesn’t have to know about the beads that she never wears in her hair, because she prefers to carry them like comforting little weights, bouncing safely in the bottoms of her pockets. He doesn’t have to know about Nyx’s promise to “pass on” one of his own tattoos to her, or Crowe’s promise. He doesn’t have to know about the handful of times she’s tried to follow one of Libertus’s not-recipes, for the express purpose of making Nyx smile.

She’s still thinking about the bare handful of times when the rain smelled right to her -- when it smelled like old trees, like deep roots, like fine-grained loam sticking to her hands and wrists -- when the elevator lets them out, and then she has to hurry after Gladio and his long-legged stride, past a series of closed doors and then down a corridor that ends in a long vertical crack of light -- 

There’s something almost familiar about the silence inside that room -- about the quality of the faint late-afternoon light pouring in through a series of slit-windows, the lit lamps hanging from the barely visible rafters in the high vault of the ceiling, the series of long mirrors on their locked-wheel legs -- and there’s something even more familiar about the girl in the center of all those features, in the center of the mirrors, beneath the rafters and the windows, as she dances in a series of tiny intricate steps and hops, the constant shift of her weight with every step, the rhythmic clatter of her low-heeled shoes against the polished stone. 

The pure sheer control she’s exerting over herself, in a way that Prompto can almost see, can almost understand: the fine movements of her hands and her feet; the roll of her head from side to side; the straight line of her shoulders. 

Even her hair is covered, for now, in a streamer of almost-shiny crimson cloth, large flat knot tied at the nape of her neck. The startling color of it stands out against her black workout clothes, from the mesh covering her back and seaming her tights, to the knee-length skirt made out of exactly eight panels that is secured around her waist with a long sash. 

As Prompto watches, Noctis switches from dancing almost in place to -- gliding, is what it looks like. Shoulders in tension, chin held far too high, hands switching positions -- up and down, up and down -- small steps with the weight of her body distributed mostly over her toes, tracing long S-lines up and down the length of the room.

Before Prompto can even process the jolt of recognition rattling down her nerves -- she hears a voice calling Noctis’s name, and the flight of something flashy-bright heading her way.

It’s not warping towards her, and she’s not warping to meet it -- it’s just that good a throw, that long, and she’s just that good at catching the item in question, which is -- a feathered fan as long as Noctis’s own arm, and now Noctis is dancing with it in an entirely different manner: because now she’s snapping the fan open and closed, upper body held upright and her free arm moving through several angles as she drops into different types of lunges. The fan in her hand is like a sword and like a shield in turns, as she flourishes it in a brilliant and quickening rhythm, matching her pirouettes and high-kicking movements.

That, too, Prompto recognizes and -- she runs over to Ignis, and says, hurriedly, “Do you have another fan?”

She doesn’t even comment on the fact that he’s wearing workout gear, too; or that he’s tucking a towel down the back of his sleeveless shirt -- she just kicks off her own shoes, and accepts a fan from him, green where Noctis’s is the blue of a steady high flame -- and she runs up to Noctis and taps her shoulder, very lightly, with the feather-end of the fan. 

“Prompto,” she hears Noctis say. Bright grin, welcoming. “You made it.”

“You obviously know these dances, you’re obviously learning to perform them,” she says, and she wonders why she’s trembling now, why she feels so urgent now, why the blood seems to be clamoring in her actual veins. “Trying to -- ask for blessings?”

“Something like that. For the winter moon -- and I know that’s still a long way from now, but -- I won’t know if I’ll be able to rehearse closer to the actual dates. I don’t know that there’ll even be anything official. But just in case I do get the chance, just in case it does happen -- I thought I’d better make all my mistakes now. I thought I’d better learn what I needed to learn now.” Blink, and those eyes homing in on her.

Homing in, calming, how strange: the moment Noctis meets her eyes, all of the noise in Prompto’s head fades away.

“Are you here to help me?”

“I don’t know about helping you or getting in your way,” she says, softly. “Since I don’t know enough about the dances either. Or I mean. I know about why the dances are danced the way they are. But the movements? Nyx has been trying to teach me. Crowe and Pelna and Tredd too. I can’t always follow them, I’m not even sure I have all the sequences in the right order. But I’m here, and I want to dance with you. Maybe we can help each other: I can show you what I know. You can show me what you know.”

She tries to smile, and she’s proud of succeeding.

She’s even prouder of the answering smile that blooms in Noctis’s eyes.

With the two of them together, with the two of them now able to play off of each other and take a cue from each other’s movements, the nature of the dance shifts, a little, at least for what she thinks of as the frame of the movements, the frame of the intentions, and she assumes the proper starting pose: her empty hand on her hip, and her hand with the fan stretched out before her. 

As though the fan were a sword that she could fight with: she holds it out to Noctis in a challenge, and Noctis smiles. Turns her back to the rest of the room, and mirrors Prompto’s pose.

“One, two, three, four,” Prompto counts, softly, and there’s still no music for them to lead in to, but the memory of learning these movements with Nyx, with Crowe, with Tredd, kicks in, and she feels confident enough to lead Noctis. Three steps forward, locked together; three steps back. Stepping into a large circle, with the two of them orbiting the point where their fans cross, clockwise and then counterclockwise -- beat, beat, and then they spin away from each other, the fans fly open and they kick, leap, storm across the spaces of the room -- maybe they fall out of each other’s beat every now and then, or maybe they take a step in the same direction when they’re supposed to be opposing, but -- it’s strangely easy, like this.

Nothing at all like dancing with the others -- she’s never smiled through these steps before, never seen the point of twirling her fan -- closed, spinning through the fingers of her hand; or open, her pointer finger hooked into the gap between the central slats.

She’s never understood why the dance shifted between pacifist and martial cadences until she found a reason to dance with someone who knew, not quite by instinct, when they had to dance in counterpoint: so she has to follow Noctis’s lead there, switching from one role to another in certain parts of the entire dance.

Some of her earliest happy memories have to do with Nyx teaching her the beginnings of these dances, sort of like duels only they’re conducted up on her toes, with fans clashing and the feathers fluttering rapidly through the escalating rhythms, the bright afterimages of movement that has nothing to do with warping or magic, and everything to do with the sheer physical speed of her own body, trying to keep up with his.

Now she’s trying to keep up with Noctis as they duel, as they dance, the fans only clicking softly together when they do make contact, thanks to the cushioning feathers.

Kick, lunge, leap, dive.

Twirl, fans on the move as they spin in place, tracing complicated arcs. Her feet and Noctis’s shoes, blurring out to her own eyes as they go faster and faster: alternating between swift-stepping shifts and the miming of combat.

When they stop at last, they’re locked together, wrist to opposing wrist, and Prompto on one knee and looking up at Noctis who is leaning over her. Breaths, heaving and turning into steam between them, and the close air in the room leaving her clammy and shivering all over --

But Ignis is clapping his hands quietly in the corner where he’s been standing all this time, and Gladio actually looks impressed -- or at least that’s what she thinks, since she only catches a glimpse of them.

Noctis hauls her back to her feet and all her attention, all her remaining energy, switches to her: and she can smile, weakly, when Noctis throws her arms around her. “I’ve never gotten that far through the whole thing alone -- you were brilliant, you led us through -- thank you, Prom.”

“I thought I was following your lead,” she says, when she can catch her breath. “Especially with the -- sword bits. Not swords,” and belatedly it re-occurs to her that she does have a fan in her hand, and that it’s more than jut the prop she’s been using to dance: so she snaps it open and tries for a breeze to cool her face. “I don’t know anything about that stuff, is what I mean. You do.”

“I just did what I thought felt natural,” she hears Noctis say. “Maybe it worked in this context.”

“We’ll have to run through it again, see if we can -- make it better,” she says.

“I would like that, but only if you’re willing,” she hears Noctis say. “I’ll stop right here otherwise. We’re not doing anything you don’t want to do.”

“Before I go on, before we do, I just wanted to know: is this what you had in mind for the entire weekend? Because I’m going to make sure you eat something first. Gotta keep your energy up. I said I would bring you something.”

Shake of the head; when Noctis sits down hard, Prompto can’t help but follow suit. “No, Prom, of course not. This is -- work, in a way. And I’m not going to make you work all weekend long. What did you bring me?”

“Pie. I made pie.”

And she falls a little bit into Noctis, leans heavily into her side, and closes her eyes -- and the music of Noctis’s sweet soft laughter rises around her.

She can feel the rhythm of her heart, the still-frantic pulse, that still beats out the time for their steps.

She’s still, and so is Noctis, and Prompto can almost see -- more than just this dance and its variations and its reasons for being performed.

She thinks she’s almost able to see the idea behind the movements themselves, and the reason for performing in counterpoint.

And then her thoughts are cut short by the quiet rumble of Noctis’s stomach, and she -- narrows her eyes at her for just a moment -- gets a badly-suppressed grin in response -- she’s so tempted to pull on the bits of Noctis’s hair that are starting to fall out of the red, but she doesn’t.

Just pulls her close and kisses her cheek, and -- rests.

For a moment, she can almost see how the dance goes, in its entirety -- the dance of what they’re learning now, and the dance of the two of them, together.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr at my FFXV sideblog [@ninemoons42-lestallumhaven](http://ninemoons42-lestallumhaven.tumblr.com/) or at my main [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/) \-- or, hey, if Tumblr becomes too rotten and we can't talk there any more, there's always Twitter, where I am @ninemoons42.


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